Win XP Home Edition non-boot problem

I have a doozy and am hoping that someone has seen this before:

We have a customer's Sony vaio computer. It has Windows XP Home SP2, integrated video, integrated ethernet, 2 sticks 256MB DDR RAM; only internal card is PCI modem. It's using PS/2 mouse and keyboard. When booting normally, it gets to the Windows XP logo screen with the scrolling bar at the bottom. That disappears and the screen goes black and it never displays the logon screen. When booting into safe mode, it hangs at agp440.sys. Here's what I've tried so far:

1. Replaced RAM with known working RAM.
2. Unplugged every unnecessary item from mobo to rule out hardware problems (2 optical drives, floppy drive -also disabled controller and floppy seek in bios when floppy unhooked), removed pci modem)
3. booted to recovery console and ran chkdsk /r and it did find and repair some system file problems, but did not solve problem
4. booted to recovery console and ran listsvc and disabled agp440.sys as per Microsoft KB #324764... after doing that it now hangs at mup.sys when booting in safe mode... have not disabled any other services
5. Early on, tried last known good configuration when booting
6. tried different ps/2 keyboard and mouse... also tried usb keyboard and mouse

This system did not come with recovery cd(s) or XP cd, so haven't tried repair install.
Would love to hear other suggestions. Thanks in advance.

Tried turning off the onboard video and plugging in the appropriate video card?

The system has a recovery on the hard drive... and there should have been a way to make the disks from that. The hard drive recovery is often accessed from the bios... you need to look at the manual for the machine to see how.

I read that on your Start menu, under Programs, there is a selection called Vaio Recovery Tool.

You run this and create a recovery disc.

All Vaios come with this tool as discs are never provided.

:)

CCT, he can't boot to windows, do you know if there is access to recovery from the bios or a function key?

I fully realize he cannot boot at this time BUT he didn't seem to know how to create a cd from the Vaio installed software SO I pointed that out. You seemed on the right track with a video problem.

OK Now ?

If you have any xp cd, boot from it and choose the repair console option..when you get to the windows installation..which is there or you wouldnt get the windows boot screen..type in chkdsk /r and hit enter. let it run and fix what it finds
see if that helps

Should that suggestion not work you can read here and try their solution:

http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:...=ca&lr=lang_en

If you have or can obtain an XP SP2 cd, I would suggest a repair installation. This has worked for me on several occasions.

Noo... I will try the vid. card tomorrow morning. The BIOS has very limited options and there is no option to disable integrated video or set the type of video. In fact, there are very few options to change. Also, no AGP slot, just two PCI slots so I will be trying a pci vid card, assuming (and hoping) we still have one around.

CCT... Not sure what you meant by "...BUT he didn't seem to know how to create a cd from the Vaio installed software SO I pointed that out." as I made no mention of an attempt at creating a recovery cd. I was merely pointing out the reason why I had not attempted a repair install and stating all the facts for everyone to consider.

geoscomp... I tried that one (step 3 in my original post). I have seen this problem before and running chkdsk with repair worked previously, but unfortunately not this time.

If a different vid card does nothing, and I am unable to find any other options, I may just try a repair install. If you have other suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks for all the ideas, thus far.

PS Also tried different PSU, which of course didn't work.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CCT

I fully realize he cannot boot at this time BUT he didn't seem to know how to create a cd from the Vaio installed software SO I pointed that out. You seemed on the right track with a video problem.

OK Now ?

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you misunderstood my post... I asked you:

Quote:

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do you know if there is access to recovery from the bios or a function key?

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Tobevers have you pulled the hard drive and attempted access to it from another machine (if only to back it up?)

Noo, I placed the drive into another machine and did a backup. I also ran drive diagnostics to make sure that the drive was not beginning to fail. Successfully backed up drive and it passed diagnostics.

add'l: If you were directing that at me... There is no access to recovery from the bios and I have not seen or read any documentation about starting/running any type of system recovery while booting or being given the option for a 'Sony' recovery menu during boot.

I was unable to figure this problem out. I tried everything I could think of, tried every suggestion or 'solution' found on the net... to no avail. Sony has a recovery partition on the drive that you access at boot by pressing F10. The recovery option is basically a re-imaging of the OS partition from the 5GB recovery partition. So, I reluctantly let it do its' thing and then restored the user's files from my backup image. All updates/patches/hotfixes/etc are installed and it is running fine... though I really wish I would've found a way to resolve the issue.
Oh, well... I tried.
Thanks for all your suggestions.

An important sidenote:
I'll admit I can be a bit of a leach on this forum. I occasionally try and answer posted problem, but for the most part, I usually pop into the forums looking for answers when I'm stumped. Eight times out of ten, the problem is solved by either following the advice of someone here, or by a solution that presented itself indirectly after following the advice of a forum member. People like NooNoo, Geoscomp, Confus-Ed, GeeksRus, and many others have been on these forums for a very, very long time and have helped an enormous number of people with their knowledge and a great deal of patience and tolerance. So... Thank You. Thank you for the time you put into this and the desire you have to share your knowledge and help others. It is very much appreciated.

Glad it's fixed and thanks for the endorsement!

To be honest, tracking something like this is uneconomical... something somewhere got screwed up and finding out exactly what it is can take forever... time the customer is not willing to pay for.

Hanging on mup.sys can be just about any driver or a piece of hardware or even a bios upset. Don't feel bad.